Windows SharePoint Services is the solution that enables you to create Web sites for information sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services — a key piece of the information worker infrastructure delivered in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 — integrates well with client applications, including the Microsoft Office system, providing additional functionality and serving as a platform for application development.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to provide additional capabilities including collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management, business process and forms, and business intelligence.

Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Service Pack 2 is a component of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is a technology included in the next release of Windows Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2008. For information on updating Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 to 3.0, please visit the Windows SharePoint Services TechCenter.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight. Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports all intranet, extranet, and Web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform, instead of relying on separate fragmented systems. Additionally, this collaboration and content management server provides IT professionals and developers with the platform and tools they need for server administration, application extensibility, and interoperability.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be used by information workers, IT administrators, and application developers.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.

• Business users gain greater control over the storage, security, distribution, and management of their electronic content, with tools that are easy to use and tightly integrated into familiar, everyday applications.
• Organizations can accelerate shared business processes with customers and partners across organizational boundaries using InfoPath Forms Services–driven solutions.
• Information workers can find information and people efficiently and easily through the facilitated information-sharing functionality and simplified content publishing. In addition, access to back-end data is achieved easily through a browser, and views into this data can be personalized.
• Administrators have powerful tools at their fingertips that ease deployment, management, and system administration, so they can spend more time on strategic tasks.
• Developers have a rich platform to build a new class of applications, called Office Business Applications, that combine powerful developer functionality with the flexibility and ease of deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Through the use of out-of-the-box application services, developers can build richer applications with less code.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 is now available. Download a free trial.

Please refer to the licensing glossary on Microsoft.com

Microsoft offers either a device-based CAL ("Device CAL") or a user-based CAL ("User CAL") for purchase. With a Device CAL, you purchase the CAL for every device that accesses your server, regardless of the number of users who use that device to access the server. With the User CAL, you purchase a device for every user who accesses the server, regardless of the number of devices they use for that access.

Because there are two types of CALs available, you can use the model that makes sense for your organization. For example, purchasing a User CAL might make more sense if your company has a need for employees to have roaming access using multiple devices. Device CALs may make more sense if your company has multiple-shift workers who share devices.

Windows SharePoint Services is included as part of the Windows Server 2003 server license or is available for download at no additional charge, and it conforms to the Windows Server 2003 licensing model. Please review Supplemental Licensing Information for Windows SharePoint Services.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 offered in the following editions:

For Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites, the use of a server determines its licensing requirements, not its location in one farm or another. Consequently, you can mix Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites within the same farm--so long as the use cases are licensed appropriately. However, because Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites licenses the functionality of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise CAL, you will need to ensure that your users only access functionality they are licensed for based on their CALs.

Microsoft Office Forms Server and Microsoft Office Forms Server for Internet Sites cannot be mixed with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites.

Additionally, as an accommodation for various possible deployment scenarios, customers wishing to consolidate their SharePoint needs under a single deployment may acquire licenses for both Office SharePoint Sever and Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites, assign those licenses to the same servers, and use the same running instances of the software simultaneously under both licenses. However, customers must acquire CALs as required under the Office SharePoint Server use rights for users and devices accessing content in any manner not permitted under the Office SharePoint Server for Internet sites use rights.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 is licensed per server. There is no additional cost for servers with multiple CPUs.

These are the different client access options for each Office SharePoint Server 2007:

For more detailed information, see the Office SharePoint Server 2007 home page.

Each client computer accessing Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Office Forms Server 2007 requires a valid CAL.

The Core CAL Suite is a bundle of CALs that includes the Windows Server CAL, Exchange Server CAL, Office SharePoint Portal Server CAL, and Systems Management Server CAL. With the release of Office SharePoint Server 2007, the SharePoint Portal Server CAL will be replaced by the Office SharePoint Server Standard CAL in the Core CAL Suite. For customers who own the Core CAL suite, you will have the right to the Office SharePoint Server Standard CAL as long as your Core CAL is valid at time of the release of Office SharePoint Server. Find out more about the Core CAL Suite.

The Enterprise CAL Suite is a new offering from Microsoft. The Enterprise CAL Suite will include the Core CAL plus new capabilities. Specifically, for Office SharePoint Server 2007, the Enterprise CAL Suite will contain both the Office SharePoint Server Standard CAL (through the Core CAL Suite) and the Office SharePoint Server Enterprise CAL. Find out more about the Enterprise CAL Suite.

If you are creating an Internet- or Extranet-facing website, it is recommended that you use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites. This license does not require the purchase of Client Access Licenses. However, all content, information, and applications on the “Internet Sites” edition must be accessible to non-employees. Websites hosted using an “Internet Sites” edition cannot be accessed by employees creating, sharing, or collaborating on content which is solely for internal use only, such as an intranet portal scenario. Here are some usage scenarios to help you determine when to use which edition:

¹ If you are only interested in hosting forms for external users, then you may use Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 for Internet Sites.
² If you are only interested in hosting forms for internal users, then you may use Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007.

When using Office SharePoint Server 2007 you will need to make sure you have the appropriate perquisite licenses for Windows Server and SQL Server. If you are building and Internet or Extranet facing website and would like to allow your business partners or customers to access your network, you have the following to consider:

Windows Server 2003:

• Acquire Windows CALs for each of your external users.

   Note   Windows CALs are not required when access to the server software is unauthenticated and conducted through the Internet. Authenticated access is defined as an exchange of user or application credentials between the server software and a user or device. An example of this exception would be if unidentified users browsed your public Web site. Windows CALs would not be required for those unauthenticated, Internet users.

• Acquire External Connector (EC) licenses for each copy of the Windows Server 2003 software that will be accessed by your external users.

   Note   An external user is a person who is not an employee, or similar personnel of the company or its affiliates, and is not someone to whom you provide hosted services using the server software. Employees interacting with the site would still require a Windows CAL.

SQL Server 2005:

• Processor Licensing Model. Under this model, a license is required for each physical or virtual processor accessed by an operating system environment running SQL Server. This license does not require any device or user client access licenses (CALs).
• Server plus Device CALs. Under this model, a server license is required for each operating system environment running an instance of SQL Server, as well as a CAL for each client device that accesses a system running SQL Server.
• Server plus User CALs. Under this model, a server license is required for each operating system environment running an instance of SQL Server, as well as a CAL for each user that accesses a system running SQL Server.

   Note   Because external users will be accessing data residing in SQL Servers, the servers running SQL Server will need to be licensed with the Windows External Connector.

For more information on the Windows External Connector License please see the External Connector License overview.

Consult Microsoft SQL Server purchasing options for more information on How to Buy SQL Server.

Yes. External users that are authenticated, by any means, would require either a Windows CAL or a server with an External Connector license.

This table shows the best licensing option for the various servers in each configuration.

Office SharePoint Servers must be same the edition across the staging and production tiers. For example, you cannot run production servers on Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites while running staging servers on Office SharePoint Server 2007.

In general, Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites is required on all servers whose intent or purpose is to participate in the exposure of content to anonymous Internet users, regardless of the farm configuration or whether or not users are directly accessing that server (staging, production, or index). A typical exception is for servers in a development/test environment, as they are typically covered by MSDN licensing. The underlying logic in this is that all servers supporting a specific solution must be licensed similarly (i.e., in the CAL/Server model or the per-server MOSSFIS model), and this is independent of the order in which information moves through servers.

For extranets, customers can choose either per server licensing (Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites) or Server/CAL licensing (Office SharePoint Server 2007 + CALs; requires licensing each unique user or device accessing the extranet solution).

For more information on MSDN licensing, please read the MSDN frequently asked questions Web site.

Once the enterprise features of Office SharePoint Server 2007 are enabled, every client accessing enterprise functionality on that server, or servers in a farm, is required to have an Enterprise CAL in addition to their standard client access.

Portions of Office SharePoint Server 2007, such as Excel Services, cannot be licensed independently. Search services are available as part of Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search and InfoPath Forms Services are available as part of Office Forms Server 2007. For all other capabilities you must license Office SharePoint Server 2007 in its entirety.

Your SharePoint CAL only covers the use of Office SharePoint Server 2007, not the 2007 release of the Microsoft Office system. When choosing a release of Microsoft Office, it is recommended you use the 2007 release for the richest user experience. For example, with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 you will have bidirectional offline sync with SharePoint document libraries. Also with the 2007 release, certain features such as the document panel and the ability to publish to Excel Services will only be enabled when using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 or Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007. Additionally, Excel Services will only work with documents saved in the Office Excel 2007 file format (XLSX). If you purchased a Core CAL Suite you will have an equivalent number of Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard CALs. If you purchased Enterprise CAL Suite, you will receive an equivalent number of Office SharePoint Server Enterprise CALs.

For more information on Microsoft Office suites, please see the 2007 Microsoft Office system packaging page.

To help you take advantage of the deployment flexibility that VM technology offers, Office SharePoint Server 2007 is licensed by "running instance." Each license you assign to a server gives you the right to run one "instance" (also called "copy" or "installation") of Office SharePoint Server 2007 on that server at a time. A single license for Office SharePoint Server 2007 also enables you to create and store any number of instances on your servers and storage media.

For example, if you are running an instance of Office SharePoint Server 2007 in each of the four VMs on a server, you need to assign four SharePoint Server licenses to that server—one for each of those running instances. However, you do not need separate licenses for the instances of Office SharePoint Server 2007 stored in any inactive VMs.

See Windows Server System Licensing to Virtualization Scenarios for more details.

Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint integrates multiple scan engines from industry-leading vendors and provides content controls to help businesses protect their Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 collaboration environment from documents containing malicious code, confidential information, and inappropriate content. Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint ships with industry-leading antivirus engines to provide comprehensive protection against the latest threats to help ensure documents are safe before they are saved to, or retrieved from, the SharePoint document library. In addition, documents can be scanned for company-sensitive information, profanity, or other administrator-defined policies. Through deep integration with Office SharePoint and Windows SharePoint Services, Forefront Security for SharePoint helps protect your collaboration environment while maintaining uptime and optimizing performance. Forefront Security for SharePoint enables administrators to easily manage product configuration and operation, automated antivirus signature updates, and reporting, at the server and enterprise level.

Read the Forefront Security for SharePoint frequently asked questions.

Forefront Security for SharePoint is offered as a monthly subscription for each SharePoint user that is being protected. The subscription is per user, per month and covers all SharePoint Servers within an environment. Subscriptions are paid upfront for a 12 month license and covers any Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services site within an organization to which users upload and download documents.

Customers who purchase Forefront Security for SharePoint to protect Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services version 3.0 will also be licensed to use Antigen for SharePoint to protect Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 environments.

Please visit the How to buy page for more information on purchasing ForeFront for SharePoint.

The cost of a SharePoint deployment depends on the Office SharePoint Server 2007 edition, the number of servers and CALs, and any applicable volume discount. For additional information about pricing, read the Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Related Technologies pricing page.

Yes. Microsoft provides an ISV Royalty Licensing program designed for ISVs that incorporate Microsoft technology into their value-added software business solutions for commercial distribution to their customers. For information on ISV pricing, please visit the Microsoft ISV Royalty Licensing Program.

Customers who purchased SharePoint Portal Server 2003 with software assurance will be granted a server license to upgrade to Office SharePoint Server 2007. An Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard CAL will be granted per each existing standalone SharePoint Portal Server 2003 CAL or Core CAL covered with software assurance.

Depending on their usage scenario, customers who purchased Content Management Server 2002 with software assurance will be able to upgrade to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The CAL granted depends on the site usage. For complete details, refer to the Microsoft Product List for Volume licensing page.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Standard CAL features can be upgraded to Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Enterprise CAL features. Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search Standard can be upgraded to Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search Enterprise Edition. Office Forms Server 2007 cannot be upgraded to a different Office SharePoint Server 2007 edition. Downgrades between the Enterprise and Standard CAL editions in Office SharePoint Server 2007 are technically not possible. Downgrading between Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 is possible from a licensing standpoint.

When upgrading from a previous editions, the following table summarizes the upgrade options:

For more information on licensing upgrades from Content Management Server, please visit the Microsoft Product List for Volume Licensing page.

For detailed information on the feature areas for each packaging option, see the Feature and Edition comparison.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 have identical feature functionality. While the feature functionality is similar, the usage rights are different.

If you are creating an Internet, or Extranet, facing website, it is recommended that you use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites which does not require the purchase client access licenses. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition can only be used for Internet facing websites and all content, information, and applications must be accessible to non-employees. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition cannot be accessed by employees creating, sharing, or collaborating on content which is solely for internal use only, such as an Intranet Portal scenario. See the previous section on licensing for more information on the usage scenarios.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 has no restrictions in terms of support for previous releases of Microsoft Office. When choosing a 2007 Microsoft Office system suite, it is recommended to use the 2007 Office release for the richest user experience. Consider the following when choosing a Microsoft Office suite:

• Office Outlook 2007 provides bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries, discussion groups, contacts, calendars, and tasks.
• Microsoft Office Groove 2007, included as part of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, will enable bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries.
• Features such as the document panel and the ability to publish to Excel Services will only be enabled when using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007or Office Enterprise 2007.
• Excel Services will only work with documents saved in the Office Excel 2007 file format (XLSX).

For more information, please visit the 2007 Microsoft Office system packaging page.

Read the Office SharePoint Server 2007 system requirements.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office Forms Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search will support 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.

Deployment planning engagements are offered at several service levels--1, 3, 5, 10 and 15-days—depending on the customer’s SA benefit entitlement (points accrued as described above). The types of services delivered will depend on the length of the engagement but include the following:

• Strategy Briefing: Defines the vision for achieving technical and business goals (part of all engagements)
• Architectural Design Session: Introduces SharePoint technologies, solutions and concepts (added in a 3-day engagement)
• Deployment Planning Session: Covers a specific SharePoint capability in depth (added in a 5-day engagement)
• Proof of Concept: Demonstrates the solution in the customer’s environment (added in 10- and 15-day engagements)

To determine the Software Assurance a particular customer has purchased, identify the person within the organization responsible for administering the licensing contract with Microsoft. This could be a legal resource, a procurement or contracting specialist, or an IT executive and is known as the Notices Contact and the Agreement Administrator. This person can receive their entitlement details and manage the activation and consumption of benefits at www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa/default.mspx.

Role-Based Templates for SharePoint My Sites are custom templates designed for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and tailored to address the unique needs and requirements of specific roles. They are extensions to the standard My Site functionality of Office SharePoint Server, providing a personal portal and dashboard data relevant to your role.

The role-based templates are pre-configured to display, in a common environment, role-relevant data from sources such as line-of-business systems, desktop tools, and portals. The templates make use of Office SharePoint Server capabilities, such as audience targeting, KPIs, workflows, Excel services, Business Data Catalog, and others.

Microsoft heard feedback from customers and partners, making available a rich set of business processes and workgroup tasks relevant for multiple departments, industries, and sizes of companies. A total of seven role-based My Site templates are available for download. The roles covered are: Administrative Assistant, Controller-Financial Analyst, Customer Service Manager, HR Manager, IT Manager, Marketing Manager, and Sales Account Manager. More information on each template can be found on the Role-Based Templates for SharePoint My Sites Web page.

Each template has a companion set of business decision maker and IT professional datasheets. The business datasheet highlights the functionality and details of the scenario which a business decision maker can use to consider deployment. The technical datasheet describes the scenario, Web parts, relevant workflows, lists and document libraries that are part of the template. Each template is also accompanied by a setup guide to assist with installation and configuration.

In addition to the Role-Based Templates for SharePoint My Sites, Microsoft has also released forty new Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Application templates are out-of-the-box, custom scenarios tailored to address the needs and requirements of specific business processes or sets of tasks within organizations of any size. More information can be found on the application template Web page.

An English version of the GroupBoard Workspace 2007 template is also available for download. The GroupBoard Workspace 2007 template for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 creates a space for a group or team to connect and share information in a collaborative environment, improving team efficiency and productivity.

There are a number of Microsoft Partners that have been offering their own solutions based on or involving the Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007. A directory of partners with such solutions can be found in the Office System Solutions Directory.

Business Data Catalog (BDC), a new feature introduced in Office SharePoint Server 2007, provides an easy way to integrate business data from back-end server applications, such as SAP or Siebel, within Office SharePoint Server 2007 without writing any code.

Each role-based template comes with a sample SQL Server 2005 database and a BDC application file for the same which has entities and associations between the entities defined with respect to the roles. The end user can customize the BDC application file as per the database and the back-end server in the enterprise.

Microsoft offers a set of customization and development tools that help tailor the role-based My Site templates to meet your specific business needs.

• Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 can be used to customize and extend instances of the templates. Using Office SharePoint Designer 2007, you can add or modify views on data in the site, as well as integrate external data from databases, Web services, and RSS. Or, when partnered with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Business Data Catalog enabled, integrate line-of-business data into your site.
• Productivity tools, such as Microsoft Office Access 2007 and Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007, also help increase the value of the templates. With Office Access 2007, you can create and integrate form and report views, coordinate structured data collection via e-mail, and access SharePoint site lists offline. With Office InfoPath 2007, you can design form solutions to gather data which can integrate with business processes leveraging the workflow capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Office InfoPath 2007-designed forms can also be filled out in the most common browsers, further broadening the reach of such form solutions.
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 can be used to modify templates or add new code to the server. Common tasks might include adding custom Web part assemblies, new server controls, or new workflow activities. After deploying these assemblies to the server, custom Web parts and workflow activities can be exposed and used in Office SharePoint Designer 2007.

Beyond these Microsoft tools, there are a number of Microsoft Partners delivering services and solutions to implement, tailor, and customize the templates to fit specific customer scenarios. Many Partner solutions go beyond template-related solutions, reaching to sophisticated applications built on the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies platform.